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Dear friends,
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The Chujjung River valley in Nepal is a kind of mountain paradise — a precious scrap of habitat for endangered red pandas, musk deer, and some of the last few snow leopards left on Earth.
But now it’s all under threat — as you read this, bulldozers are on their way to build a massive hydropower dam that will drown this valley, wiping out the animals and Indigenous communities who live here.
However, these people aren’t giving up. They’ve come up with a last-ditch plan to stop this dam — and they need our help to make it work.
The dam requires building roads to truck supplies up the mountains. But by buying specific parcels of land and registering them as protected, the community here can block the roads from being built — which means the dam can’t happen.
It’s simple, but effective: similar buffer zones are protecting other critical habitats in Nepal already.
But for it to work, they need funds to buy the land. That’s where we come in. If we can raise enough with this email, community leaders say they can get this land officially protected within weeks. And our donations will go even further — funding Avaaz campaigns that stand with Indigenous communities and safeguard life on Earth.
This is a chance to help protect some of the last snow leopards — partnering with the Indigenous communities who’ve ensured they survive until today. Let’s block the bulldozers. Let’s stop this dam. Donate what you can now:
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Snow leopards face life and death threats at every turn: mega infrastructure projects, poaching, expanding cities, the climate crisis… their world melts away, year on year.
There may now only be 3,500 left in the wild.
This new dam would be another nail in the coffin — threatening one of the few undisturbed territories they have left in these mountains.
Nepal’s Indigenous Bhote community have stewarded this place for centuries. They’re the reason it remains a safe haven for threatened species. But if this dam goes ahead, the villages, monasteries and way of life here could all be washed away.
It’s their plan to buy this land — a fight for biodiversity, and for their own survival. And it can work, but it needs funding. If we raise enough, we could:
- Buy strategic parcels of land in Nepal’s Chujjung valley — registering them as officially protected, blocking bulldozers from their intended construction site, and supporting the legal and media work to ensure protections are upheld;
- Partner with Indigenous communities who are fighting to protect their lands around the world — supporting them to resist megaprojects, and protecting our world’s remaining biodiversity;
- Fund crucial Indigenous lawsuits — that challenge land grabs and the decimation of ecosystems and watersheds; and
- Push for radical action on biodiversity and climate — getting Indigenous leaders to the nature summits that matter in the coming months.
Our movement supported the Bhote community to lay down protections for this region in 2019 — helping to create a huge ‘biocultural heritage zone’. But Nepal’s hunger for hydropower has only grown. Now, we need to help the Bhote finish the job, and protect this place for good. Together, we can help them preserve their culture, and protect a vast snow leopard habitat in a rapidly changing world. Donate what you can now:
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Avaaz is proud to have stood with Indigenous Peoples in their fight for justice — blocking megaprojects and land grabs from Tanzania to the Amazon. We’re a movement from every country on Earth: lawyers, activists, teachers, journalists, grandparents. And when millions of us act as one, across the planet, we can make an outsize difference to the world we leave our future ancestors.
With fierce hope and endless determination,
Jon, Mike, Bert, Antonia, Ana Sofia and the whole team at Avaaz
Note: Snow leopards are incredibly difficult to photograph — because they are so rare and elusive. The photo above is from Kyrgyzstan, where snow leopard habitat is also under threat and in decline.
Image credit: Sebastian Kennerknecht
PS. This might be your first donation to our movement ever. But what a first donation! Did you know that Avaaz relies entirely on small donations from members like you? That’s why we’re fully independent, nimble and effective. Join the over 1 million people who’ve donated to make Avaaz a real force for good in the world.
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